


One For The Road

by search_soleil (epaulettes)



Series: Kifu Storage Room series [1]
Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epaulettes/pseuds/search_soleil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hikaru keeps his promises. Eventually. Three instances of Akira and Hikaru in the kifu storage room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One For The Road

**Author's Note:**

> It takes a lot to get me to attempt creative writing in a notebook, but one day I was bored enough in French class to start manually scribbling this. I polished and finished it on the computer as Dianne Reeves crooned about love and loss and the stories they leave behind. Titled accordingly.

_It's quarter to three,_   
_ There's no one in the place 'cept you and me_   
_ So set 'em up Joe_   
_ I got a little story I think you should kno_ _w_ ** __ **   
** **

**  
** The first time Akira found him there, Hikaru Shindou was asleep.

They'd had plans to meet at the Touya go-salon, but Shindou had lost a match that day that had caused him to fall out of the Honinbo league. When he hadn't shown up, Akira had first thought Shindou was just being his regular spazzy self – that he would burst in fifteen minutes late and plop down unceremoniously, as usual, for his tri-weekly game with Akira. Thirty minutes passed before Akira began to really worry. After an hour, Akira thought it best to check up on the two-toned punk, if at least to assure himself that said punk remained alive.

Following a trail of missed appointments brought Akira all the way back to the Go Association building. Apparently, Shindou had never left. After a short bit of wandering, one of the more friendly janitors on the second floor told him that 'that rival of his had holed himself away in the old storage room and hadn't been out for hours, the crazy kid.'

When Akira had been eight, his father had taken him into the kifu room. While the blossoming go-fanatic in him had rejoiced in the history of the place, the eight year-old part of him couldn't help but feel like he might be spirited away by a lingering spirit any minute. The combined effect of the two feelings had been nearly overwhelming.

He turned the knob with a slight sense of lingering apprehension and slowly opened the door, not wanting to disturb Shindou too much with his entrance.

He shouldn't have bothered. Akira found his rival dead asleep on a pile of ancient-looking kifu, one old light bulb glowing weakly above him.

Akira picked himself across the room. Between the Go Association's lackadaisical organization and Shindou's tsunami-like nature, the room looked to have been ravaged by the God of Go seeking vengeance on the world.

The young man in question was tucked in a corner, head buried in folded arms that seemed almost to embrace the go records spread before him. Akira glanced at the games and felt a sharp twinge in recognition at the name stamped across the tops of every one of them.

Honinbo Shuusaku: greatest Japanese Go-player of all time, object of the lesser-known Shindou Hikaru's quiet obsession.

Akira hesitated to wake him, but Shindou couldn't spend the night here. With a gentleness that might have surprised Akira, had he taken the time to consider his actions, he shook Shindou just enough to pull him away from where ever his dreams had led him.

"Shindou."

The other boy stirred and woke. Slowly, he sat up, straightened, and turned to see whose hand was on his shoulder.

When Akira saw his eyes, he nearly gasped. They were only a little red, sleep having dampened the effect, but combined with a lingering frown it was just discernible that Shindou had been crying.

As soon as Akira registered the expression, it was gone and replaced with an appropriate amount of surprise. "Touya! What are you doing here? Aren't we meeting at --?"

Akira cut him off. "You were supposed to meet me two hours ago," Akira supplied, then added, with a slight, fond grin, "you overslept, idiot."

Shindou didn't take the bait. "Ah, sorry," he answered instead, putting the story together. His eyes had a faraway glint that unnerved Akira.

He asked the obvious question, a little desperate to bring Shindou back to his current surroundings. "Shindou, what were you doing here?"

Shindou's eyes widened slightly. "Er, that is, you know..." He seemed to scrabble for an excuse before visibly admitting defeat. He gestured vaguely to the kifu surrounding him. "I like it here. I feel connected to... things. It helps me calm down after a bad match."

Akira felt his face scrunch in confusion. "Calm down? In this place? I can barely relax, I feel like a Go Spirit might appear at any moment."

At that, the far-away expression took on a wistful glint, twisting his mouth into a strange semblance of a smile. "Exactly."

"...Shindou?"

Before Akira could ask any more, Shindou's face rearranged itself into a serious expression. His strong spirit, so intrinsic to his Go, seemed to return. "I promise, Touya. If it's you, I'll explain it. Someday."

Something flared in the back of Touya's mind – the particular brand of irrational, strangled frustration that Akira felt every time this subject cropped up between them. This was the untouchable side of Shindou that Akira only understood by instinct. The old Shindou that Akira knew better than anyone else. The unsolvable mystery of Sai, to which Shindou alone held the key.

Akira wanted to cry.

Instead, he stole his composure, forcibly mirroring Shindou's determined look. He summoned his fangs and nodded.

Hikaru's face broke out into a much more familiar, uncomplicated grin. "Only you, Touya. I promise."

***

The third time Akira found him there, Hikaru Shindou was wide awake.

Shindou had been behaving unusually. What little Akira had seen of him during their games that day had been an intense mixture of genius-level go sense and uncharacteristic stillness.

In the kifu storage room, Shindou had such a desperate look in his eyes that Akira was unnerved all over again. He looked up as Akira entered and began answering before Akira even settled on what question to ask.

“I couldn’t go, I had a match. This is the best I can do for today.”

Akira knew, on a basic and very useless level, that it was May 5th. He had passed a number Koinobori flags on his way to the Go Association building and noted absently that it was Children’s Day. Even as the thought entered his mind, he knew that this was not what Shindou was talking about.

Akira tried to reply to what he could. “Couldn’t you have announced an absence?”

“They give me these menacing looks when I try! It’s been four years since I became a pro and they’re still nervous about me taking off in May, like I’d start forfeiting again.” There was a hard edge to his words.  
   
Akira remembered the string of forfeits well – remembered not allowing himself to think that he’d lost his reason for becoming a pro before he’d even had a chance to experience it properly.

There was a silence between them. Then Akira asked quietly, “Where would you have gone?”

Hikaru seemed to appreciate the gesture. He displayed the hand he wasn’t using to hold his fan, ticking off places, “Well, Inno Island of course, Takehara, all over Hiroshima really. Then, back to Tokyo for Sugamo and finally, back here.”

Something about the way Shindou said ‘here’ came across as ‘this room’ and Akira didn’t even have to look at the kifu in front of Shindou for it all to click into place. “Shuusaku?” Akira’s memory stirred. “You want to observe Shuusaku’s birthday?”

Shindou’s mouth quirked wryly. “Not exactly, but something similar, I guess.”

Akira was sick of not understanding. “Shindou, what is it about you and Shuusaku?”

Shindou gave him a nervous look that made Akira instantly relent, but he received an answer anyway. “Shuusaku and me, we had something in common.”

“Had?”

“Yeah, had. I lost it a long time ago. Actually, it was four years ago today.” Shindou’s grip on his fan had tightened, turning his knuckles white.

Oh. “So this something was precious to you?”

“Yeah, but I took it for granted. It was gone before I realized just how important it was.”

Akira didn’t know what to say, so he said, “I see.”

Shindou’s smile was sad and grateful. “No, you don’t. Someday you will. I promised, right?”

Even the fangs of Akira Touya weren’t merciless enough to pursue that line of conversation when Hikaru had said it like that, looking like he did. “Yes, you did.”

Akira picked up some kifu, and they sat reading in companionable silence for a long time.

***

The fifth time, it was Hikaru Shindou who found Akira, and Touya Kouyo was dead.

Akira was still dressed in his black formal wear from the funeral. He hadn’t bothered to change. He wasn’t even completely certain how he had ended up here. Somewhere in his mind, he remembered telling his mother that he had something he needed to take care of, that he couldn’t return home with her, though he felt terrible to leave her alone in that house without him for even a few hours.

Somewhere else, he thought dimly that he might have come here because part of what he was feeling reminded him of Shindou’s sad, lost, and desperate eyes. Akira hoped frantically that whatever solace Shindou found here would spare a little of its sympathy for his miserable self.

Most of his thoughts, however, were occupied with reliving every significant moment he'd ever experienced with his father. Every precious compliment, every wise correction, and his father’s hands, which continued still to loom huge and strong in Akira’s memory. He sat and clung to a collection of his father’s games like a sailor clung zealously to his lifeboat of mangled planks after a disastrous storm.

Shindou came in quietly and sat down across from him. Akira looked at him and tried not to appear as wretched as he felt.

“Touya, do you mind if I tell you a story right now?”

Akira thought the question was a little ridiculous, but Shindou was all that was standing between him and complete breakdown, so he swallowed any disdain he might have felt and said, "All right."

So Shindou began, “A thousand years ago, in the Heian Era, a really great Go player named Fujiwara-no-Sai was one of two Go instructors that taught the emperor in the capitol…”

And much later, Hikaru ended, “So your dad and Sai are probably up in heaven right now, having the most awesome game outside of either of their lives. The God of Go must be really happy, don’t you think?”

And then Akira leaned on him and cried. Somewhere above, a few tears escaped Hikaru’s eyes as well.

When Akira finally quieted, he straightened and tried not to feel completely and utterly embarrassed. He noticed Hikaru’s damp eyes and felt a little surer of himself.

Hikaru smiled that deep smile of his – it didn’t seem quite as sad anymore – and said, “I promised, right?”

Akira tried out a smile in return, and he was surprised to find that it held. “Yes, you did.”


End file.
